Impressions of lesson with shorthitter

For months, I have struggled to grasp the feel of full shoulder turn and extension. While I have played some excellent rounds over the last few months, my swing has been largely inconsistent, chipping and especially putting have been bringing my game down.

Fast forward to my CNY game last Wednesday, where I played a properly horrid round in the morning, and only a slightly better one in the afternoon, with no idea whatsoever the root causes of the problem.

So I make a phone call to shorthitter aka Allen Kelly for a session to have my swing looked at and have a proper training programme in place.

I turn up at Laguna Golf & Country Club at 9.40 am, and he's already there, ready to go. He's friendly (I'd only met him once before at BFG, and we've corresponded over email and SMS a couple of times before) and we get right down to business. I get 30 balls out of the machine, and like all good coaches, he has me place the basket behind me on the seat, rather than to dump all 30 balls in the tray in front of the mat and machine gun.

Without going into too many details, he sizes me up, has me hit a couple of balls, and voila, he sees the problems with my swing, and has me do a couple of drills. These drills are clearly designed to have me understand how it 'FEELS' to do certain things. In my case, a lot of my problems had to do with poor setup, poor alignment, and really bad shoulder extension on follow through with even worse maintenance of spin angle throughout the swing.

Next thing I know, I'm hitting shots straight when just ten to fifteen minutes before, I was hooking my shots 20m left of the designated landing spot.

Hard to believe, so I pull out my 5 iron and stripe 2 shots onto a bald patch on the range, one straight, one with a very slight fade. I pull out my wayward driver (golfbeginner, eiji and alvin will attest to that) and WHAM, another straight and long shot, right to the back left corner of the range net.

Right, with that done, he has me head over to the chipping and putting green, and shows me how to setup and address the ball, and introduces another drill to help me get a better feel, which helped me to gauge the right amount of strength. After all, all that was called on me was to make sure i hit the shot crisply. And holing 2 out of 10 shots right after that. In a lesson that lasted all of 15 minutes.

Next up was putting. Allen (shorthitter) had me make a couple of putts, and immediately spotted why I was pulling my shots - again, poor setup and slignment, and poor judge of the amount of effort needed to lag the putt close. 5 minutes later, with more patience, better setup, and a new drill in hand, I'm lagging putts to 3 ft or less.

All this while, Allen's using Rotella's lessons, a keen eye and relevant drills to help me to understand, in the way I know best, to do it right. After the chipping and putting drills, we head back to driving range and rehash the lessons and drills. And for good measure, I hit a couple more balls, all straight, and though 1 or 2 were slightly thin, they all hit the target.

Post-lesson, Allen drops me an email covering what were went through, and the key points to remember, and a note of encouragement.

Thanks, Allenm I will put those lessons in play this week, and will continue to keep you posted on my progress

good to hear, hope to have a game with you when you are back in july

You will!

Go see shorthitter. He fixed my right side tendency so far. Gotta game the revised swing and will post field results.

Hi bro, I have went thru almost the same stuff when I had my first session with jhan81 at warrant the day after our MBGC game.

He had also spot the problem with my setup and shoulder alignment as well as my clubface angle at backswing. Currently I am also practising on the drill advise by him. So far, most of my shots are either straight or mini fade.

I am planning to have my second session with him mainly focus on bunker shot.

Looking forward to have a game with u when u r back again

snowman

hmmm...this is abit awkward....

Good coaches are important when one gets stuck. Too many people try to self-medicate. For me, I'd rather not risk making new bad habits when a session with a professional coach costs less than a round of golf in Singapore.

Jhan, you came highly recommended too, btw.

Thanks mate, all that and introduce you to famous people...

Glad you enjoyed time, will watch your scores drop!

See you July...

Ghoonk, glad it works out good for you too. Allen works great for me. I echo your review above. i was also hooking shots big time. and he fixed it. I should be planning a return trip to Dubai... I'll let you know.

Allen, I hurt my wrist this CNY... golf fatigue already. I will post my score on Gametrack for you to review. I think there's still work to be done at my end. I will touch base with you again once I recover and back from biz travel. Mark and should plan to play one round with you again!

hey Jhan!

I didnt get your contact number the last time we met at BFG!

I was hanging at at Warren at nights last weeks but didnt bump into you.

Post me your contact. I will need yoru help when I come back in the next 2 months, in time for the summer games here!

Had a newbie, been coming to me for a few weeks, last time at Tering Bay shot 130+

Played on the weekend 102.

He was over the moon.

Makes coaching worthwhile when someone actually listens and improves!

Ha thanks mate, one of the "good ones"...

I got offered a job with Bedwetter recently... see your post glad I said no....

Its a shame what happened to Lonard. He was such a good player.....
If you work for Bedwetter must pull pants right up above the belly button and wear silly hat